1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic games and, more particularly, to a gun and target apparatus facilitating a game of tag using infrared light communications between a plurality of players. A gun body for an electronic controller, infrared light transmitter and receiver combination includes a handle with at least one hand operable trigger and a housing atop the handle conforming to the player's wrist and forearm. The housing has a top portion for mounting an arcuate target window exposed upwardly and outwardly over a wide range of side angles. The housing also includes a front end portion forward of the handle for positioning an infrared light lens for focussing a series of encoded infrared light signals from the transmitter outwardly from the housing. The receiver includes one or more photodiodes for detecting infrared light biased by an inductive current source presenting a substantially higher alternating current than direct current circuit impedance, which tends to limit current changes from abrupt changes in illumination to avoid driving the infrared receiver into saturation. Each transmitter provides a signature series of encoded infrared light signals substantially longer in duration than abrupt changes in the illumination from background noise to discriminate the encoded infrared signals from the background noise at said receiver.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior art infrared electronic games have been available since about 1985. For example, one prior art infrared electronic game, sold beginning in about 1986 by WORLDS OF WONDER under the trademark LAZER TAG, permitted players to fire invisible beams at one another with each player being provided with a game unit for emission of an infrared light beam. In the WORLDS OF WONDER game, a target was affixed to each player in order to count the number of "hits" registered by the target associated with each player. In the WORLDS OF WONDER game, a player was tagged "out" when 6 hits were registered for that player.
Infrared games are communication devices using infrared light beams, operating on the same principle as a remote control for a television set or a videocassette recorder. Efforts have been made to operate prior art infrared games in the very harsh environment of direct and indirect sunlight, as well as in the environment of indoor lighting. These various environments have made it extremely difficult to reliably communicate from an emitting unit to a target. Numerous efforts have been made to deal with harsh lighting environments, with various techniques and varying degrees of success.
A need exists for infrared communication systems for use with electronic games having infrared emitters and sensors so as to better address the various lighting environments making it difficult to reliably communicate from an emitting unit to a target in a game setting. Additionally, it would be desirable to provide cost effective encoding of digital infrared signals to insure communication between various apparatus, and further to provide special features when communicating between these apparatus. An enhanced user interface for the players of such games may also find multiple input switches or triggers advantageous for providing multiple modes of play to make such game more interesting and challenging.